


the love language of taking swords

by sajere1



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Comfort, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:29:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21586879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sajere1/pseuds/sajere1
Summary: Fabian gets hurt, and Riz fusses over him. It's about as annoying as Fabian expected.
Relationships: Riz Gukgak & Fabian Aramais Seacaster, Riz Gukgak/Fabian Aramais Seacaster
Comments: 11
Kudos: 312





	the love language of taking swords

**Author's Note:**

  * For [strawberry_sky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberry_sky/gifts).



The fourth time that Riz pushes him back into the bed, Fabian finally snaps.

“Jesus Christ, the Ball, I’m not an _invalid,”_ he says when Riz wanders back, the textbook Fabian wanted in hand. His papers – stupid homework that doesn’t mean anything because they’re all like three years ahead of their class – are scattered around him in haphazard stacks, half-finished and discarded as focus comes and goes. “I can walk across the room.”

Riz has what Fabian calls his Bemused Look – his eyebrows just barely raised, like he’s trying to keep them down but can’t help himself, the tiniest quirk to his lips. “Yes, you are,” Riz says, straddling the line between stating fact and goading. “You’re literally not even supposed to sit up. That is, like, the definition of invalid.”

“It is not.” Fabian does not have any evidence to back up his side, but that’s not the point. “When Kristen said to take care of me, she didn’t mean to smother me, I’m sure.”

“I was given very specific instructions.” Riz flips the book open. Perhaps it’s the mild concussion, but it takes a moment for Fabian to process that Riz somehow knows the chapter he needs without asking. It takes a full minute to realize that he must have gathered it from Fabian’s complaints about the class material. Which – uh, Fabian didn’t actually think Riz listened to those rambles, so that’s. Huh. “Also there’s nothing you can do to stop me, because you’re weak and susceptible, so checkmate.”

“I’m not weak - “

“I know, it’s a joke, good gods.” Riz lays the book open next to the open notebook in front of Fabian. “Maybe if you didn’t want to be taken care of, you should’ve taken the healer feat like I told you to.”

“We have two healers, if they did their job right we wouldn’t need it,” Fabian grumbles – and then, immediately, winces at himself. The movement stretches his side, makes his blood ache, which is not a set of words that should go together in any circumstance, he thinks bitterly.

He doesn’t realize he’s gone tense and still with pain until he feels Riz’s hand, tentative, on his shoulder. Fabian blinks up – Riz has stood, probably rushed over the moment Fabian winced. His hands are hovering, not quite touching, as if to catch Fabian if he keels over paralyzed again. Fabian takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, tensing and relaxing each muscle in his body one at a time until the curdling soreness spreading through his body dissipates.

“I’m fine,” he says, haughty, when he’s absolutely certain that he isn’t about to faint. Riz gives him a dubious look. Fabian rolls his eyes. “Sit down, the Ball, I said I’m _fine.”_

Riz slowly moves back to his spot at the end of the bed, hands still outstretched, eyes wary on Fabian’s form. Fabian runs a hand through his hair as he lets himself slouch, careful to adjust so that his whole body does not hurt. “I didn’t mean that,” he says, a little quieter. “About - Kristen is a good healer. Fig is, too. They’re good at what they do. I’m not - “

Riz watches, silent. “You would just think there would be a spell for this,” Fabian huffs, scowling at the paper in front of him.

“It’s a powerful poison,” Riz reminds him, and his voice is gentle, almost endeared. It is terrible. Fabian is not endearing. He’s cool. “Just because Kristen doesn’t have a spell to help doesn’t mean no one does.”

“Then whoever does better fucking get here faster,” Fabian grouches.

“They’ll find someone.” Riz’s voice is irritatingly cheerful. “And in the meantime, you’re stuck with me.”

“Joy of joys.” Fabian realizes that the words on the page are just swimming in front of him, and he is going to have to wait a minute for his brain to get back in full working order again. He looks up at Riz again instead, who is beaming at him, like it really is the time of his life to be stuck in here acting as Fabian’s maid with absolutely no reward. Despite himself, Fabian’s face softens. “You can – if you want to go, you don’t have to be here, you know. I can get Cathilda to come up and do all this. I pay _her.”_

Riz hesitates for a moment, ears twisting, as if they’re fabric the wind is blowing back and forth. Fabian has never taken a class on goblin body language or anything, but he’s watched Riz for so long, in the corners of classrooms when no one will catch him looking, in the shine of his smile when he’s caught up in something, that Fabian feels fairly well versed in his tics. He doesn’t know whether Riz controls it or if it’s some unconscious body thing, but Riz’s ears twisting, like this, are his caution ears. His thinking ears. His I’m-about-to-be-vulnerable-in-front-of-you-so-please-don’t-be-a-dick-about-it,-Fabian ears.

“I - “ Riz digs his fingers into the covers. “It’s not – I’m fine. I, uh, I want to be here.”

“That is absolute bullshit,” Fabian says, and Riz snorts.

“It’s not,” Riz smiles. “It’s - “And he tries to stop himself, but his eyes dart to it, to Fabian’s side, where the sword sunk in. The cut of it, the flesh wound, has long since been healed – it’s far from the worst wound Fabian’s ever had – but the poison that laced the edges has not.

“You don’t have to feel guilty,” Fabian says.

“I don’t feel guilty.”

“And you don’t - owe me for it, or whatever,” Fabian pushes. He’s scowling, still, but Riz must know it’s not at him, because he isn’t scowling back, is just looking at Fabian with that same irritating, endeared expression. “I’m a fighter. I’m supposed to take the hits. I’m not squishy.”

“I am not squishy, my hit die is a d8, that’s average - “

“That’s so squishy, you tiny tiny man.”

“I don’t feel like I owe you,” Riz says. “That’s. That’s not why I’m here.”

“Bullshit,” Fabian says again, and would throw his arms up dramatically to emphasize the point except that when he starts to his blood hurts again. God, poison sucks. It’s completely ruining his flair.

“I - “ Riz is not looking at Fabian anymore, staring determinedly up at the ceiling, face flushing cyan-blue as he chooses his words. “I am – thankful. Don’t get me wrong. It, uh, seems like it sucks, to be poisoned. But – I’d be here if you’d taken the hit for someone else, too. Or just if you’d taken the hit normally. It’s not – like, thanks, but that’s not. I don’t feel. Indebted. Or whatever.”

That still doesn’t make any sense. “Well, what the fuck, then, the Ball?”

Riz snorts. “I - “ Riz sighs, and then looks down, so that he’s matching Fabian’s gaze, still flushed but his gaze steady. “If I weren’t here, I’d just be tearing myself up thinking about it,” he confesses. “I wouldn’t - Cathilda’s great at her job, for sure, but I wouldn’t trust anyone. To take care of you. It’d drive me insane. I know I’m not, like, an actual doctor or anything, but I.” Riz wrings his hands. “I feel better, seeing that you’re safe, and okay, and stuff. Actively. It feels awful, not being here, and the only that helps is, is, helping. If that makes sense.”

Riz is scratching his arm, idle, movement that draw Fabian's eye. He's picking at his tattoos. It's a bad habit and a worse tattoo, one that he really should've gotten removed when he'd gotten all the others magicked off, but he insisted on keeping one as a memento. It's Leviathan, a miniature map, something that Riz insisted was still kind of tasteful and may be useful in the future. Riz, hand on his sword, falling asleep trying to watch over Fabian after the worst night of his life. Riz, looking at him now, with hands to steady him, but only if he needs it.

It hits Fabian – the way Riz has been rushing to his side at the slightest hint of pain, catering to his whims, watching him while he reads instead of distracting himself or doing his own work, looking at Fabian like he needs to be taken care, or something – is not because Riz thinks he’s weak. His mind is sluggish, and poisoned, and maybe he should’ve come to this conclusion earlier, but it hits him now. Riz is worried. When Fabian had seen the sword swinging at Riz’s neck, it hadn’t been a question. He knows a critical hit when he sees one. The way his heart strung itself up in the rush to put himself between them, to take against his chest what would’ve sliced through Riz’s throat – it was no question. He had to be there. He had to do it himself, to take care of him.

This is the same. Spread out, perhaps, over hours, instead of an instant, untampered with by adrenaline, but it’s the same – Riz scrambling all around the house to grab him whatever he needs, feeding him, talking him through his boredom; this, in its own way, is the sword Riz is taking back. Not because he feels like he has to, like Fabian thought, but for the same reason Fabian had taken the sword in the first place. Because he wants to. Because the idea of not, and hoping for the best – even if it could be fine without his interference – is intolerable.

Oh. Huh.

He doesn’t know why it’s taken this long to catch onto the fact that Riz really, genuinely likes him. Riz spent every waking moment calling Fabian his best friend. But it hasn’t sunk in, somehow, until now, in the quiet, looking at Riz sitting on the bed across from him, and thinking, huh. Well. Huh, like some inarticulate asshole. Well.

“Riz,” Fabian says, and his breath catches on it, and the way Riz smiles, a little funny – Fabian’s heart catches. He would do it again.

Fabian looks back down at the book. The letters have stopped swimming.

Fabian clears his throat. “Well,” he says, reigning himself in careful, “eventually I’m going to have to piss, and you’re going to regret saying all that.”

Riz laughs. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” he says. And this time, when he leans in to fuss, Fabian lets him. Just a little.

**Author's Note:**

> this was actually written a few month's ago for @drinking-dead-people-tea on tumblr's birthday. when i looked over it to reformat it for ao3 i figured it would benefit from updating to match the liveshow, which is Canonical Hurt/Comfort For My Heart
> 
> catch me on tumblr @riz-gukgak! im done or almost done w moving the fics i want from tumblr over to here, and after that i have a couple that i've been keeping to myself i'm waffling on posting. thanks for your patience as i continue to ruin the d20 ao3 tag! (its fine, i made the tag happen, legally i can do whatever i want)


End file.
